Page 44 - 2023 AMA Spring

CADETS
ARMY CADETS’ LAKE DISTRICT AT CAMP 2022
Lt Col Cath Davies, Army Cadets National Adviser for Adventurous Training
In June 2022, the Regional Command Cadets Branch AT team deployed to Halton Training Camp, not far from
Lancaster, to run an AT camp for St Brigid’s School Combined Cadet Force (CCF). Some of you may be aware that the Cadet Centre for Adventurous Training (CCAT) has its headquarters in Capel Curig Training Camp in North Wales, but we also have a satellite centre in Halton, giving access to the multitude of AT opportunities in the Lake District.
Our initial plan had been to run an AT camp for nationally recruited CCF cadets, offering an annual camp opportunity for cadets who may not have had the chance to attend a camp in their own area. In 2022, pressure on the Defence estate was such that many CCF central camps were cancelled and we were tasked with running an AT camp to help meet this need. In the end, this did not happen, but we still had the facilities booked at Halton, so on the principle of adapt, improvise and overcome, Andy Lester, SO2 AT, found a CCF in his local area who had no annual camp provision and offered the opportunity to them.
That is how we ended up in Halton with 39 cadets and 6 school CCF staff, three of whom were AT instructors. We ran four activities over the week with paddling, hillwalking, climbing and abseiling run in-house, and an external organisation hired to provide a day’s caving and gorge walking. As a staunch AMA member(!) I could only instruct on the climbing and abseiling, but Andy and Matt Jackson, SO2 Assurance, are more talented than I and switched between the climbing, abseiling and paddling, leaving the hill walking to the school staff.
The hill walkers had their choice of some great walks such as High Street, Helvellyn, Langdale Pikes and the Old Man of Coniston, only weather and fitness could
cramp their style and luckily, we were blessed with wall-to-wall sunshine. The paddlers used the areas of Fellfoot and Waterhead on Windermere, deploying both canoes and stand-up paddleboards (SUPs), a very popular option with cadets.
Matt had previously worked at the RAF Air Cadets AT Centre based at Windemere so was very familiar with the area and had chosen a couple of excellent venues for the climbing and abseiling. From the minibus parking area in the Dow and Duddon Valley, a short uphill walk brought us to the climbing area at Tilberthwaite Quarry, an ideal introduction-to-climbing venue where the group could be safely managed and several routes put up in a confined area. At lunch time, we stripped the routes and descended to the minibus, dropped off the climbing kit, collected the abseiling kit and walked 30 minutes to Cathedral Quarry. This is one part of an old mine working area and evidence of the area’s historic use is everywhere. We accessed the bottom of the impressive abseil through a tunnel leading to a huge cavern and having inspected that, exited through another tunnel. This was totally dark and the cadets were tasked to work as a team and make a plan as to how they would tackle this then execute that plan. Obviously, in this day and age, this involved the lights on their mobile phones and various means of sticking together! We then made our way further up the hillside to the top of the abseil. All this provided an exciting adventure and novel experience for the cadets, never mind what was to come. The photo illustrates the scale of the abseil, which finishes with a 10m free abseil after negotiating a 3m overlap.
Once back at camp and de-kitted, I ran the review. This, in my opinion, is the most important part of the day. Helping the cadets reflect on what they had learnt about themselves and others and understand how those strengths and
Abseiling in Cathedral Quarry
skills could transfer to other areas of their lives is key to why AT is more than just outdoor activity. And you might be amazed at how insightful cadets, some only 14 years old, can be when given the space and encouragement to reflect. Whilst AT in the Army is designed to improve operational performance through increasing mental and physical robustness, in the Army Cadets it is all about personal development.
This model of running AT, using some external instructors and buying in commercial providers to compliment unit instructors will be the modus operandi now but we plan to build the AT workforce over time. Since parting ways with the JSAT scheme, we have aligned all our CCAT courses to National Governing Body (NGB) qualifications and at even the introductory and intermediate levels, cadets and Cadet Force Adult Volunteers (CFAVs) can gain recognised civilian awards, eventually leading to instructor and leader qualifications. We will initially focus on lower-level qualifications to enable delivery of mandated AT across
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